Below find an info-graphic on how this is rolling out in the area of link building. This is from the esteemed (IMO) Aaron Wall over at seobook.com – highest recommendation to read his blog for more search geek wisdom BTW.

The challenges of link building continue. These are highly problematic challenges for small businesses. These are challenges that we research and experiment with, untangle and solve every day.

SEO Infographic by SEO Book

I hear this question occasionally… being so deep in data and the results of good campaigns vs. “others” I am well past ever questioning it.

Yes – It Works and is getting better and harder at the same time. Competition does that! The increase in mobile device use is also a major factor that many businesses are increasing ill prepared for.

GroupM just published some research on search detail and value.

Buyers are more likely to click on your search result!

To quote: “The Web is influencing more than $1 trillion of in-store sales, and search is the number one online channel for driving that revenue,” said Chris Copeland, CEO, GroupM Search. “This new understanding of the retail shopper represents a behavioral shift. The intent shown in search provides brands an opportunity to maximize their online revenues and encourage and cultivate greater in-store sales.”

Eighty-Six Percent of In-Store, Retail Buyers Search on Generic versus Branded Keywords… these findings are consistent with the results of research we have conducted in multiple industries around the important role search plays in a consumer’s path-to-purchase.

My favorite: 10 percent of shoppers report using tablets during the retail shopping process. 10% already from tablets. This is a brand spanking new baby still!

For more at Business Wire

The above happened in the last … week!

If you know me at all, you know I tend to bleat on endlessly about how things are changing so incredibly fast in the mobile space and that the transition from desktops to mobile devices is the biggest, fastest business change in history.

The above is more evidence of this. A huge player in mobile, namely Google, spends 12.5 Billion dollars to purchase a money losing mobile device maker. Once the deal closes that adds 60% more people to the Google team. Wow. Good or bad time will tell but this is a massive change!

Hewlett Packard (HP) is the worlds largest computer seller. Last week they reported earnings and added in the second paragraph that they were killing their mobile division webOS (which they got from purchasing Palm last year.) Pre phones and (2 month old) Tablets – discontinued. They went on sale at bargain prices and pretty much sold out over the weekend. For those interested, this is a fast way to burn $100 million.

HP also stated their intention to explore selling off their consumer computer division! Yo, the largest computer manufacturer just said they cannot compete in mobile or in computers and the business sucks and they want out. Wow.

Acer is the second largest computer manufacturer in the world. They released their quarterly numbers early this week and for the first time in 10 years lost money. They said they will not make a profit this year. Their chairman Wang, stated that tablets were fading in popularity and Acer would be blah blah big blah blah sell more than anyone blah blah, wait until next year blah blah.

The second biggest computer seller is in trouble. Wow.

This data supports how big the transition is. Mobile devices are exploding in popularity and there will be more of them than computers very soon – before the end of this year, 2011.

For small business it means that your business is best served by looking to the future as to where your customers are going to be looking for, and hopefully finding you.

Is it on a mobile device? Do you know if you are ready? Do you know what it will take to get ready?

You already know that YellowPages, TV, newspapers, direct mail don’t work as well as they used to – if at all.

So what’s your plan? Wait and watch to see if it really happens… or get started?

Since we’re so deep in data from all the customers we serve, we see it every day… search volumes are growing in every sector. Local business niches that were simple to get top ranks for because the competition was sparse 2 years ago, are tougher and tougher now!

The gun has gone off and the race has started! The scale – At worst your competition is taking your online business and are disappearing over the horizon. At best you’ve got started marketing online and you’re putting competition in the rearview.

Where are you on that scale with your online marketing plan?

We knew it was coming; the man has had serious health problems for a number of years now. I truly wish him all the best!

Steve Jobs is a technology giant.

His vision and drive at the start of the personal computer industry; his crazy drive and purpose in launching the Mac; the vision of NExt and the superb operating system they created (which makes all Apples more recent accomplishments possible); the historic return to save Apple years after his ouster; the long term vision involved in setting up and connecting the dots of the iPod, iTunes, iPhone and iPad; the unprecedented turn around and now decimation of the computer industry by Apple; his single minded pursuit of the best solutions for customers possible while making a decent profit… are legendary.

My first computer was an Osborne, and it pretty much killed me for quite a few years from using computers. My first deeply useable computer was a Mac and in a couple years on from then the internet entered. Now it seems Apple computers are tools I use 14+ hours a day – for work, for communication, and for recreation.

Steve Jobs vision made that possible. We have 5 Macs, 3 iPads, 3 iPhones, 2 Apple TV’s, 2 Airports and Airport Extreme, 5 or 6 iPods… many other people have the same sort of quiver. It is any wonder that Apple is flirting with being the most valuable company on earth?

Mr. Jobs was rewarded… worth over $500 million when he was 26 years old. A multi billionaire today.

How will his leaving the CEO post effect Apple? Not at all! Certainly not for years anyway. They have planned, crafted and executed the biggest come back in business history. The result of this revolutionary change to the “post-pc” era wil roll on.

Apple has a deep team who have been there a long time. They are well setup for the future and anyone who says anything else is talking out their hat!

They started planning, testing, building the iPad 10 years ago – so I’m willing to bet they have products for at least the next 5 years already started.

The iPad and it’s next versions will continue to eat the rest of the PC industry alive for years. No one else has a realistic opportunity to quickly put all the pieces together the way Apple has; Google, Microsoft and Amazon are the only players with a remote chance and each of them has big gaps to fill.

But today I celebrate Steve jobs and his family. I hope and pray his health gives him all the years he wants. He’s earned it.

• Canadian consumers use the internet more than any other country on earth – the average is 42.5 hours a week!

• Canadians use YouTube more than any other country

• Canadians are tops in social media use (tied with Finland and Sweden)

Here’s the mind boggling one….

Less than 50% of the 2 million small businesses in Canada have a website! …Let alone are doing any marketing online.

There is clearly a disconnect between our business community and the public. We lead the world in the above (and more categories like smart phone use, use of online search…) and our businesses are not prepared to take advantage. But – to quote…

Here’s the Great News!

• Canadian consumers use the internet more than any other country on earth – the average is 42.5 hours a week!

• Canadians use YouTube more than any other country

• Canadians are tops in social media use (tied with Finland and Sweden)

Here’s the mind boggling one….

Less than 50% of the 2 million small businesses in Canada have a website!  …Let alone are doing any marketing online.

There is clearly a disconnect between our business community and the public. We lead the world in the above (and more categories like smart phone use, use of online search…) and our businesses are not prepared to take advantage. But – to quote…

Here’s the Great News!

Quality written content is one of the keys to getting more of your website crawled and indexed by search engines and then being seen as an authority in your market. Quality content is important; as is enough of it to be effective. 300-500 words is ideal (We’ve tested and usefully longer -is- better. It ranks higher and gets more traffic)

Also very important is more relevant topics creating more pages. Websites need content and lots of it!

Most small business websites are 6 pages with very little written content. Sites like these, especially if they are up against bigger, more developed competitors (and this is increasingly the case), are impossible to get high rankings for a wide variety of keyword searches. There just isn’t enough material!

Our small to medium sized business clients are busy people. So how can we simplify the process and make it as easy as possible to get more effective content produced that will help their business? Below is a process that we use internally that helps our clients take care of this. My thanks to Alex Mandossian who has been talking about this for a long while!

There are a lot of advantages to using a system like this. It requires a low time commitment for you (or our client), you talk quicker than you write, it can produce a lot of content when you get on a roll, and it’s quality content that is keyword rich – resulting in more traffic!

Step 1 — It always starts with keyword research

In Google: start typing questions. (For now Bing doesn’t work as well for this.) You have a local garage or you’re a dentist… Go to Google and begin searching for “(ford) air conditioning problems” or “what is cosmetic dentistry” etc. – Don’t Hit Enter! – check out the suggestions that are generated. Note these (use a screen capture tool) and now you’ve got some starting topics.

What makes this tactic effective is that right away you know you are writing about what people are actually searching for. There is no point in writing on topics where there is no interest, right?

Other free keyword tools to use to get ideas from:
Wordtracker Keyword Questions
Type in a topic and this will return the most asked questions… the challenge is that it returns a fair amount of junk, so it does take time to edit this to a useable list.

Suggester
Type in a term and it suggests other related search terms. Use these as idea starters.

The search engines have other tools (look on the left side): for instance the Google Wonder Wheel will give you related searches in a graphical format; or the Timeline will show you which time frame searches are being conducted for -i.e. There are many searches for “ford air conditioning problems” centred around 1975.

Step 2 — Easy Content Production

The two main ways to produce this content are: a. Hire a copywriter to produce an article; b. Get a subject matter expert to produce it.

In most cases, the expert version is far more effective and valuable. The hangup is that they (you) don’t have the time (or habit skills) to produce written content.

Here’s the secret of getting the content produced:

Option 1: If you are a good speaker, record answers to the questions. We send our clients the questions and they record answers and send the audio back. Very easy to do with a smartphone!

Option 2: If prompting works better (…and ensures it gets done!) use a Google Voice or Skype account; the key is to be able to record calls. Get someone to call and ask you the questions. In our case, at an arranged time, the client calls the Google Voice number and are asked questions from the research in step 1. Recorded calls are downloaded.

For extra points of usefulness, create a format ahead of time. Have a defined process and stick to it.

Step 3 – Transcription and Repurposing

Email the recordings to a third party to transcribe. Using a quality transcription service will save a lot of editing time.

However, here is where preparation makes a difference and having a set format pays off.

If the call produces a good sounding interview, you can repurpose this in a number of ways; as audio, as a podcast and/or as the sound track for slide show videos. That content in all forms can go on your website or blog as well as be distributed online, getting high value links and traffic from podcast directories (list of many podcast directories), video distribution sites, content sites (like www.scribd.com; www.docstoc.com; issu.com; slideshare.net; authorstream.com; etc.), and with some massage (like creating an excerpt and shortlink) on social media like Facebook and Twitter.

One of these a week will create thousands of high value links a year to your website! Produce enough content to get 3 posts a week or more and you get hundreds of thousands of links each year. This is how to be dominant in your niche.

To save time, get the transcription formatted as a post for a blog with headlines and bullets – make it easy to read and people will read it. This probably will require a 2 step process; someone to transcribe (cheaper), and someone to format.

There is plenty of information on formatting for readability, here’s one of my favorites…
How to format a blog post by Problogdesign

The advantage of this system is that you have most of the work done in minimum time on your (or our clients) part.

Online video is growing rapidly for business as the most persuasive marketing channel.

Online video works for all the reasons that Television was the dominant mass media for 50+ years… done well it’s engaging, entertaining and persuasive. It communicates a lot in a short period of time.

Online video is a must have for your websites search results and if you have a complicated product or service, it can really shorten the buying cycle.

Social Media Marketing works best when you use it to create relationships; it’s different than traditional marketing. You can sell there but you must also contribute, help and represent your business. If people feel you are part of their community, they will support you and recommend you to their friends. It is truly word-of-mouth marketing at its best.

Do you have a Social Media Management plan and strategy?

Social Media marketing has some big advantages. It allows you to reach customers the same or better than large brands. It doesn’t matter if you are working from home or a small business. You can be perceived in the same light as any large corporation or even celebrity.

It is a great way to connect directly with your target market in a “helping” setting. This is great for attracting new customers that you would never have met but for social media marketing.

Call us and we can build a program that will work for you!

The thing about search marketing is it’s effectiveness. When people are doing a search for a local business product or service, they are looking to buy.

So once your business shows up optimized for a mobile device and in the top 3 on the first page, you will get more business.

Mobile search is growing very, very quickly. Google has stated that searches from mobile devices will pass searches from desktops in 2011.

Mobile device growth – smartphones and tablets – even though it already has been huge, is just getting started. Apple, Android, Windows Mobile, Blackberry are bringing many devices out in 2011 and they are selling in history making amounts.

That means that your website will be seeing a big growth in searches from mobiles. Depending on your market, mobile device visits to your website might easily be your biggest source of customers by the end of this year.

Is your website optimized for mobile search? We can help.